Two At A Time (at UMMA: University of Michigan Museum of Art)
Trains: Art
Art has been collecting model trains all his life.
His mom and dad got him started as a kid, and he still has the original toy train. “It still runs,” he says.
After his children left the house, he converted their bedrooms into train rooms.
“It keeps me occupied,” Art says.
After 20 years in the club, with everyone placing trains on each other’s sets, how does he know which train is his?
“We just know.”
On Photo Books
Study the masters to improve your craft.
My latest Medium post on rolling your own masters class using photo books.
Gibraltar Trade Center
It’s like ‘Toy Story’ — some toys enjoy a life of playtime with children, while others are collectors items, doomed to live out their fading lives in glass cases.
So it was at the Gibraltar Trade Center. Here, the characters of my youth — Ninja Turtles and WWF wrestlers and Spider-Man — existed in purgatory. Premium prices on shitty quality toys placed in precarious positions.
Consider the Marvel super heroes chained by their Pac-Man overlord to duel with their counterpart villains. Every day. Forever.
Or the poor headless Star Wars figurine ensnared in the jaws of an unforgiving and sadistic toy shark. The horror.
Spider-Man tried to make his escape, and we rooted for him.
Trains: Blair
Both sides of Blair’s family have worked on the railroad. He has five family members riding the rails.
“I love seeing my brother drive by on the train,” he says.
Blair’s been collecting train memorabilia since he was young. He has an O-gauge train set at home, and the GTs are his favorites.
He’s grateful for the Central Michigan Model Railroad Club.
“I can’t personally work on the railroad because I’m deaf, so this is the next best thing.”
Turtle Power
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle bandwagon started at just the right time for me, just as He-Man and the Masters of the Universe was waning in popularity. As a kid, I needed another franchise: cartoons, movies, toys, video games, the whole thing.
At about nine years old, the Turtles were it. They offered another world to invest in, and boy, did they give it to me.
So when I went to my fraternity brother’s DLux Entertainment Expo earlier this spring, it was slightly weird to realize the Turtles here were not strict about their secret identities.
They weren’t shy about taking off their turtle heads. It was a little bit like the mall Santa taking off his beard in full view of the kids.
But at least they had pizza for lunch, right?
Big Show
Neon Hitch and Mike Posner, performing at Albion College’s annual Big Show concert.
One of my favorite projects to shoot all year.
Trains: Gene
Gene is 85 years old. He’s been seriously collecting trains for more than 55 years. It all started with a $5 set during the Depression.
He served two tours of duty in World War II and in the Korean War.
“When I got home from the service, I started collecting more.”
Since then, he’s been a bit of everything: pest control, fencing (as in fences), antiques.
He’s been with the Central Michigan Model Railroad Club since the beginning, in the 1960s. It’s the tradition – the idea of keeping these old trains alive – that keeps him interested. He likes the G-gauge trains: “The big ones.”
His set is full of moving parts, like a talking car wash, and a tornado that spins around on an old record player.
Gene also collects barbed wire.